In The Spotlight

Until now, just about all we knew about the results of two years of partisan, unlimited “soft money” fundraising by the host committees for the 2008 major party conventions were the names of donors they elected to disclose. With the filing of the first official host committee reports, we now have a complete list of donors and, even more important, we know the amount of cash or in-kind contributions from each donor.

Party Conventions’ Financiers Have Spent Nearly $1.5 billion on Federal Campaign Contributions and Lobbying Since 2005
In collaboration with the Center for Responsive Politics, CFI has updated its previous analyses of private financing for the upcoming 2008 Democratic and Republican conventions. (Fourth in a series of reports on the 2008 national party conventions.)

Senators John McCain and Barack Obama have earned reputations as campaign finance reformers. Lately their rival presidential campaigns have been competing over which is more independent of lobbyists. Yet these same candidates are getting ready to star at party nominating conventions that are largely financed by unlimited contributions from corporate treasuries. These donations have been solicited -- via convention city “host committees” -- by each party’s elected officials and fundraisers and their appeals have been accompanied by promises of special access to federal decision-makers.

A new CFI analysis finds that both Democrats and Republicans are using local “host committees” in Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul as vehicles for unlimited soft money contributions to their respective 2008 party conventions. This analysis is largely based on documents received from freedom of information requests to Governors and Mayors in Colorado and Minnesota which are excerpted extensively in the report and its appendices.

Early press coverage of Henry M. Paulson, Jr.'s nomination for Secretary of the Treasury has referred to his "hard money" contributions and fundraising, mainly on behalf of Republican party committees and candidates. Far more important however was his 2003 undertaking, along with 11 other fundraisers, to raise "several million dollars each"1 in unlimited "soft money" corporate and individual contributions for the 2004 Republican nominating convention. Mr. Paulson "called around to his colleagues asking them to contribute to the convention's operating budget. As a [finance] co-chairman he personally agreed to help raise $5 million to help pay for the convention, according to the host committee." 2

The national political party conventions may seem a long time away, but the Democratic and Republican National Committees recently sent letters to cities likely to be interested in hosting the 2008 presidential nominating convention. This is the first step towards soliciting "host city" bids for this big political event.

Thirty-three of sixty-seven companies known to be donating to the host committee for the Republican Convention also gave over $100,000 in soft money to the Republican Party in either the 2000 or 2002 election cycles. Most (17) of the 33 firms are not headquartered in New York. CFI's analysis is based on the donors listed on the host committee’s website as of August 20, and data on political contributions provided by the Center for Responsive Politics. (See Table 1 for the list of companies donating to the host committee that also made large soft money contributions to the Republican Party)

Fifteen of twenty-eight newly revealed $100,000+ donors to the 2004 Democratic convention were $100,000+ soft money contributors to the Democratic party in either 2000 or 2002. The last minute disclosure this week by the Boston Host Committee of more than a quarter of its large donors raises the number of such donors who made major soft money donations to the Democratic Party in the 2000 or 2002 elections from 20 to 35. Table 1 provides a complete list of major host committee donors who have made large soft money contributions to the Democrats.

The Campaign Finance Institute, a nonpartisan institute affiliated with The George Washington University, announces a new feature on its website that will serve as a major resource to journalists covering the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating conventions this summer.

WASHINGTON – In the first election cycle after soft money contributions to national political parties were banned, convention city “host committees” are raising at least $103.5 million in unlimited private donations for the party nominating conventions – twelve times what they raised for the 1992 conventions – with much of it coming from traditional soft money sources.